1. Field of the Invention
This invention concerns a converter suitable for the connection of a printer used for printing tags and labels, including brand name tags, price cards, slips, and stickers, a particular example being a bar code printer, to a stand-alone personal computer (for example an IBM 5550 made by IBM) of a different model, or to similarly different multi-purpose workstations, work stations or personal computers connected online to an office computer (for example, the said IBM 5550 connected to a System 38 office computer made by IBM); and a system used to print tags and label which uses this converter.
2. Prior Art
Conventionally, tags and labels, including brand name labels and price tags (called tags and labels below) have been printed by connecting a special label printer to a stand-alone personal computer or to a personal computer used in conjunction with an office computer (host computer); however, connection has been restricted to certain particular types of machines which could match the control commands output by the label printer and the computer respectively. Two machines from different manufacturers, or different models from the same manufacturer, could hardly ever be connected if data control codes and kanji character codes and the codes which controlled them were different.
While there had been some cases of the connection of a label printer to a personal computer of a different type through use of an RS-232C interface, because there were few online utilities which supported an RS-232C interface, it was possible to print labels only by first outputting the data from the online terminal, and then having an operator re-input that output data to the personal computer with the RS-232C interface, and sending the data to the label printer via a program.
Thus while it was possible to connect a personal computer with an RS-232C interface to a label printer, it could not be used online in any practical way. In particular, users such as supermarkets, chainstores, department stores, and other retailers, wished to display their trade names in a distinctive way and print labels in various different shapes, graphics and print positions, and also to be able to accurately print labels where and when required. Thus it was essential to be able to use a multi-purpose workstation, work station or personal computer connected to the host computer to retrieve the necessary data stored in a data base on the host computer, and then send the required data in the desired format to the label printer for online printing of tags and labels. This requirement could not be satisfied using a personal computer with the said RS-232C interface.
Recently an increasing number of diverse multipurpose workstations, workstations and personal computers (such as the IBM 5550, made by IBM) with Centronics interfaces have appeared on the market. While these types of computers, when connected to a host computer (such as the System 38 from IBM) in a network, can be operated very effectively, it was still impossible to connect them to a label printer because of the differences between the control commands. Thus at the current time these computers are not used to print labels.